The present invention concerns a heat exchanger with a connection that connects an uncooled pipe to several cooled pipes.
Heat-exchanger connections wherein the heat-insulated end of a hot and uncooled pipe bifurcates outward are known (German Patent 3910630). The connection conveys the hot gas into a single pipe that is cooled from outside, by boiling water for example. The principle has been proven. Still, it is considered more or less of a drawback that the cooled pipe must be relatively long because of its considerable width, approximately the same as that of the uncooled pipe. This is because of the thermodynamics involved in cooling the gas to a specific desired temperature.
The cooled pipe can be considerably shorter and the heat exchanger accordingly more cost effective when the hot fluid from the single uncooled pipe is distributed to several cooled pipes. Designs of this genus are known wherein hot fluid deriving from an intake is distributed by way of an intake chamber to a number of cooled pipes secured in s single floor. There is, however, a drawback to this system in that the fluid becomes turbulent as it reaches the floor and tends to erode it. U.S. Pat. No. 5,464,057 discloses a heat exchanger of doubled-walled pipe that communicates with a header in the form of a pipe with an elliptical cross-section. There is an intake at the end of the heat exchanger where the gas enters. The intake accommodates several gas channels, each communicating with a gas-supply pipe. Each gas channel tapers out downstream and distributes the hot incoming gas to several cooled pipes. Drawbacks to this heat exchanger are its extreme length and that each cooled pipe requires a separate jacket to accommodate the coolant. Furthermore, the intake is complicated and accordingly expensive.
Another known heat exchanger of double-walled pipe employs a connection in the form of a siphon pipe that branches into two or three legs with no change in the overall cross-section. Each leg is assigned to one of the double-walled pipes. This heat exchanger has basically the same drawbacks as the one described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,464,057.